That winter when Philip was ill, for the first time, I used to spend every evening at Abercorran House, chiefly upstairs, reading aloud or talking. I was supposed to entertain him, but he did most of the entertaining. Out of his own head or out of books he told me hundreds of tales; in either case they were very much his own. I cannot imitate him. For example, he would always bring his characters before himself and his listener by comparing them to persons known to both. When he was well and out of doors he would pick out a man or woman passing us, or at a window, for a comparison. “This Palomides,” he would say, “was like that butcher, but dressed differently: you could see what good legs he had.” Another was “like my brother Roland, and if he had been alive now he could have jumped over spiked railings up to his own shoulder, though he was not a little man.” The Icelandic Thorbeorg was “like our Jessie: only she would use a knife, and she had fair hair.” A certain villain was “a scoundrel, _but_ he had a face like Higgs.” The man who resembled Roland was an Icelander, Haurd by name, whom Philip called Roland throughout the tale. Thorbeorg was his sister. This was the tale: Haurd was a head taller than most men, and he had grand hair. He was clever, strong, and bold. He swam better than all others, and his eyesight was wonderful. But he was a touchy man. Not being asked in the proper manner to his sister Thurid’s wedding feast, he refused to go when the bridegroom, Illuge, came on purpose to fetch him. Yet a little after, when Geir, his own foster-brother, asked him to go just to please him, he went. However, at the feast he treated Illuge lightly; refused the present of a shield--accepted a ring, but with the remark that in his opinion being a brother-in-law would not mean much to Illuge. Hearing Haurd say such things in a lazy way for no apparent reason and taken aback by it, he did not answer. As soon as he got home, Haurd gave the ring to his sister, Thorbeorg, bidding her remember him when he was dead. Soon afterwards, with Geir and his other foster-brother, Helge, who was a tramp’s son, he left home. Twenty years before that, when Thorbeorg’s mother Signy was married to Grimkel, her brother Torfe took offence in the same way, because he was not consulted. Signy was very fond of him, and it was at his house that she gave birth to Thorbeorg and died the same day. Grief for his sister made him hate the child; he cast it out of the house, and chance alone saved its life. Thus Grimkel had a quarrel with Torfe over Signy’s marriage portion and the injury to his child, Thorbeorg. Fifteen years Haurd stayed away from home. He got renown as a fighter. He won honour, wealth, and an earl’s daughter, Helga, for a wife. This Helga was as noble a lady as Thorbeorg.